A Day in the Life of Lough Gara

Lough Gara offers the perfect location for country pursuits like horse riding clay pigeon shooting, falconry, boating trips, and archery in County Sligo. Run by a husband and wife duo, Adrien and Jimmy Kneale, a lot of stag and hen groups have had memorable moments in Lough Gara.

As a popular activity centre for stags and hens, we sought to know more about the place and the power couple behind Lough Gara Riding Stables.

What made you decide to start Lough Gara?

We started Lough Gara Stables & Country pursuits to give people a chance to experience traditional country pursuits in our peaceful tranquil location. We wanted to give people a chance to escape the rat race for a couple of hours and enjoy some friendly competition with their friends.

Describe a typical day in the life of Lough Gara.

Typical Saturday: We Start with feeding horses, hawks and pets from pets’ barn. We get horses in, cleaned and tacked up for their day of work. Clay pigeon traps are stacked. Shotguns are checked and oiled. Air rifles are sighted in to make sure they are accurate. Archery targets are erected. Hawks are caught from cages and put on bow perches for ease of handling and flying.

Then, groups arrive throughout the day. They move between Three clay shooting stands, archery stand and Air Rifle stand, All stands have enthusiastic instructors and are roofed.

The hens are usually found horse riding in the roofed arena, in the Pet’s barn, or out experiencing a hawk or eagle owl flying to their gloved hand, hens will also try their hand at archery and Air rifle shooting, there is plenty to do for the ladies in the group that don’t want to ride.

Stags are usually found clay shooting, Air rifle shooting and Archery, some will also be interested in some falconry. Everyone mingles over a coffee in the large clubroom or in the gazebo overlooking the lake. When last group leaves Horses are untacked, fed and put to bed, Hawks are fed and put in cages, guns are oiled and put in gun cabinet and we collapse with a large glass of wine.

What is your favourite activity in Lough Gara?

Adrien’s favourite is horse riding. Jimmy’s favourite is shooting.

What has been your best achievement?

Jimmy won a silver medal for Ireland in Skeet shooting (clay pigeon) in the world championships in2009. Adrien trained dressage horse, Balaseyr Royal, which competed in Olympics with Richard Davidson.